The Most Complicated Hamburger I Didn't Eat

My book is nearing completion, and I've been thinking about cover concepts.  I wanted a cover with food, but what?  Ice cream came to mind, but face it, that is what kept me fat.  I'm in love with my replacement yogurt with fruit, but I didn't think it would be as recognizable.  Plus, it didn't highlight that many techniques.  Pizza is great any time of the day or temperature, but it just seems destine to be a risk food.  Then there was one another food that came to mind.  It was there for me growing up, after school, on many cheap teenage dates, in my apartment in grad school, on many cheap adult dates, and even today for dinner.  Hamburgers! When I started trying to lose weight, fitting in two hamburgers for dinner was like trying to fit in a large pizza.  But tonight, I ate two for dinner and had enough calories left over for a chocolate yogurt shake.

I planned for hamburgers tonight and cooked an extra one for the photo shoot.  As they fried in the cast iron pan, I asked my wife, "Which hamburger patty looks the most photogenic?"  I used the two I was eating for dinner as practice.  Does it look better all together or separated into parts?  What size and amount of lettuce best represents the message I want to convey?  The whole photo shoot took me an hour, far longer than it took to cook or eat the hamburger.


I used only actual food, no glue, glitter, or fake stuff on my plate.  Sure it may have looked better, but I'm about reality in food, not make believe.  The grocery store already sells enough make believe food.  I thought of myself as a National Geographic photographer on expedition trying to get the perfect shoot of the hamburger in the wild.


I even had to face the apex predator of the kitchen.  It got rough at the end when my toddler took a break from cartoons and toys to notice what I was up to.  Then he yelled he wanted a hamburger and made an unsuccessful raid campaign to the table.  Fortunately I had another hamburger left over in the fridge I used to buy him off.

In the end, I think I captured it:

This hamburger was like the ones I actually ate for dinner.  The above as pictured was only 385 calories.  It highlighted what I've learned about engineering calories.  The beef, cheese, and bread all fell into the "will work for calories" technique.  For example, the beef is a chuck roast I ran through the food processor.  That saved over a hundred calories in itself.  I'm topping it with a mini-salad of veggies to lower the calorie density.  (Fun fact - the jalapeños and onions are from my garden last year.)  Beyond that, the plate highlighted how my tastes have changed: extra sharp cheddar cheese, mustard, and raspberry tea.  Those don't go as far back as me and my childhood hamburger but are regulars now.  I always thought tea was dirty water and mustard was as tasty as a banana peel.  Now I'm drinking tea everyday and to the point where mustard can replace mayo and BBQ sauce.


The "sprinkles-on-top" experience is that during this whole time I was never tempted to eat the hamburger.  I felt sated from the two I ate for dinner.  Though I did the drink the tea when I was done.  Still can't believe I missed out on it all those years.  Now I just need to review my 80 something shoots and finalize on the image.  The above is one one my leading favourites.

Disclaimer: Hamburgers were eaten in the making of this production.

A Calorie Engineer Valentine's Day

Got my wife some Roses:

Even better I made home made cupcakes with optional cherry frosting:

I started with a standard golden layer cake recipe.

• Replaced half the sugar with sugar free sweeter
• Substituted almond milk for the whole milk
• Substituted white whole wheat flour for cake flour.  Honest, I'd do that even if it was more calories.  Maybe it'd be softer with cake flour, but it was plenty soft and moist enough.  It is the difference between eating food and pure sugar.

In the end, they came out to 207 calories each (and 4.7 grams protein).  If I needed, there would be opportunities to pull down the calories even more.  For instance, I used 10 tablespoons of cream butter.  I could have used margarine or applesauce for all of part of that to lower the calories.  But I didn't for two reasons.  First, didn't want to change too many things at once.  I haven't made this recipe that many times.  Second, I didn't need too.  The 207 calories each is fine for my needs.  Know when to quit engineering and move onto the next challenge.
One tip in making cupcakes: Fold the dry and wet ingredients.  Don't mix.  The difference between cake and muffins.  Sure you have to dish wash an extra bowl, but it is Valentine’s day.  Suppose that's why I make more muffins than cup cakes, the other days :)

I still celebrate with food, but responsibility.  Yet, I don't celebrate only with food.  I took the family to the Indianapolis Children's museum.  I burned almost all the calories for one cupcake just from that trip.

Plus burned even more calories through cooking and tasks around the house and yard.  We had a bit of a snow here and that landed me even more unexpected calories through shovelling and ploughing snow.  With all that, I was running a bit low on calories consumed and needed to seek out more food to eat.  I already had two cupcakes in the day and didn't feel like another.  Honest, I didn't crave another.  Instead I had something healthy - mixed veggies with cream butter as a snack between meals.  That's become one of my frequent snacks when I'm low on calories.  I used a mix with carrots, so it has a good vitamin A boost.

I made dinner extra special by making steak.  For only 685 calories I had steak, mashed potatoes, cream gravy, and sourdough bread.  I didn't used to like steak all that much, growing up on hamburgers, but I've come to appreciate the low calories that lean steak has to offer.

And tonight looking forward to watching the season première of Walking Dead with my wife and a bowl of buttered popcorn.  This is our Sunday night tradition.  Popcorn is pretty low calories, as long as you don't over do the butter.

There you have it a random holiday.  Went on a family walking trip.  A little extra indulgent with the cupcakes.  But I engineered those to a lower level of calories.  Burned a good deal of calories from a walking and other activities.  And I still had a sensible breakfast, lunch, dinner, and post dinner snack.

How to Cut Up a Pineapple

Many years ago, I never thought to eat a pineapple.  I pictured it as something people put on a ham.  But one day, I had fresh pineapple and it was good, ice cream level good.  Of course, I had no clue how to cut one up.  They are a bit imposing when you look at them.  Not as easy as an apple or an orange, and they do look a bit like an alien fruit.  But once I invested some time in learning how to cut them up, I learned it wasn't near as difficult as I thought it would be.  Plus the stuff from a can and what is baked on a ham is a far cry from what comes out of the pineapple direct.

Ingredients

• One pineapple

Hardware

• Flat surface
• Paring knife
• Big bowl

1.) Cut off the ends of the pineapple and thus have a canister shape.